COROT
Artist's impression of the COROT spacecraft.
COROT
Mission Overview
The CoRoT space satellite (Convection, Rotation and planetary transits) is a cooperation of the Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES) with Paris Observatoire and other French, European and Brazilian laboratories. With its 27 cm reflecting telescope, CoRoT performed high precision asteroseismological measurements in space and observed faint stars at low photometric noise level. Investigating stellar oscillations helps to learn about physical properties of the interior of stars. Furthermore, CoRoT's major contribution was the search for extrasolar planets. During the mission lifetime 34 confirmed exoplanets were discovered and studied and about 160.000 light curves of stars showing variations were collected.
Involved Personnel
PI (Paris Observatory): A. Baglin
CNES Project Manager: O. Vandermarcq
Coordinators: M. Fridlund, R. Garrido, E. Janot-Pacheco, A. Noels, H. Rauer, W. Weiss (Austria)
Representatives: G. Alecian, T. Guillot, D. Rouan, I. Roxburgh, J. Schneider, G. Vauclair
Scientists: M. Auvergne, F. Baudin, P. Borde, C. Catala, M. Deleuil, A. Hatzes, O. La Marle, E. Michel, C. Moutou, M. Ollivier, T. Rank-Lüftinger (Austria), K. Zwintz (Austria)
Milestones
Launch date: 27 December 2006
Last observation: 17 June 2014
Funding
Links